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Can someone please help me understand what “thinking dialectically” actually means? (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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I’m reading through The Curriculum of Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism at the moment so I’ve been trying to get my head around this lately. It would be super helpful if someone could, say, talk about some historical political development or some contemporary issue and tell me examples of what an idealist, nondialectical materialist, and dialectical materialist analysis of that issue might look like? Thank you 🙏

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[–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I was only framing it that way because OP did. Materialism as an actual idea is pretty closely related to dialectic thinking. There is a modern version of it that is bastardized though. Liberal "I fucking love science" types, and PMCs that think reading stock tickers is being materialist.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    I didn’t mean to imply they’re mutually exclusive things, but can’t people put forward a material analysis of something without thinking in terms of dialectics? Isn’t that what people mean when they say vulgar materialism?

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  • [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago*

    A stupid analogy that explains my interpretation would be a car accident.

    An idealist would lay the blame on the moral failing of the drivers involved, a "vulgar" materialist would bring up the road signaling or mechanical issues with the vehicles, and a dialectical materialist would see the situation as a symptom of overdevelopment of vehicular infrastructure.

    Now just replace a car crash with a market crash or a crisis of overproduction.

    All 3 of them can be correct about something, but one one of those actually does anything to prevent the situation entirely instead of just reacting to it as it happens.

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